Basically, advanced "I spy"

So, for those of you who didn’t follow the journey on this blog, I spent April 2016 – March 2017 travelling around the world. I left my home in Hong Kong, visited 23 countries over the course of a year and have now returned to my native UK. Let’s say, for argument’s sake that you,…

Have you, as a traveller, ever looked out over a spell-binding landscape, miles from civilisation, and wished you could share the experience with someone? Have you ever tried to follow directions in sketchy handwriting to a legendary waterfall, hidden in the surrounding hills? Have you slumped to the pavement beside your dusty backpack, tired and…

With only three days remaining before my flight back to the UK, my odyssey was drawing to a close. There still remained time, however, to spend a few more days in Delhi and to take advantage of it being Holi, the Hindu festival of colours. (Yes, the one where everyone throws coloured powder at each…

My plan for the day was to drive west from Weligama to Hikkaduwa on the south-west coast. This meant passing so close to the coastal town of Galle (also known as Galle Fort) that it would be silly not to stop in and look around. Galle has, at various times, been colonised by the Portuguese, the Dutch…

I left you on the road to Weligama, a town on the south coasts hugely popular with surfing enthusiasts. I shall reprise my story: I had been driving since breakfast and, as the hour hand crept past one o’clock, I started to scan the road for places to eat. It was Sunday and I was…

Ask anyone in a Sri Lankan travel agency where you should go for unspoilt nature and great hiking and they will inevitably tell you to go to Nuwara Eliya. Ask any traveller who has been to Nuwara Eliya and they will invariably tell you they wish they had spent more time in Ella. Both are…

Kandy, although the name sounds like a Las Vegas exotic dancer or one of the lesser known Kardashians, is actually a culture-rich town in the middle of Sri Lanka. Perched in the hills and encircling the idyllic Kandy Lake, Kandy is most famous for the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, which curates a tooth…

I left Colombo in a rented Suzuki Marati equipped with a motor from a go-kart – it only accelerated when gravity-assisted. At least this time the rental contract was legitimate! My plan was to drive to Sigiriya – also known as Lion Rock for reasons that will become clear – and, from there, to perform an anti-clockwise…

This post finds me in Colombo – the capital city of Sri Lanka (well, actually that was four weeks ago. I’m now on a sofa in Wiltshire, UK, but it’s better to write like its current). The first thing that struck me on reaching the city was its relative order and cleanliness in comparison with…

Throughout my time in India, whenever I told people I was going to visit Chennai (formerly Madras), they had the same reaction: “Why on Earth would you want to do that?!” Chennai is unbearably hot and humid for most of the year and doesn’t have a great many tourist attractions to distract from this punishing…

After the horrors of my previous hotel, upon reaching Coimbatore, a swelteringly hot city in central Tamil Nadu, I checked myself into a 4-star place as curative pampering. The concierge helped me with my bags and I offered him 50 rupees to thank him for his trouble. At this point, he came out with an…